Joel Sánchez, Salvadoran migrant turned businessman seeking the Presidency

The businessman and resident in USA Joel Sánchez returned to The Saviorfrom where he migrated when he was 19 years old, to compete for the Presidency alongside the weakened Nationalist Republican Alliance (Arena, right), which governed the country for 20 years.

Sánchez, 55 years old and originally from the municipality of Cojutepeque (east), was proclaimed presidential candidate in July 2023 and chose businesswoman Hilcia Bonilla, also a resident of the United States, as his running mate for the race, where the favorite is the president and candidate for immediate re-election, Nayib Bukele.

In addition to facing the great popularity of Bukele, whom polls put in the lead with an overwhelming advantage, Sánchez has carried the legacy of the corruption scandals of former presidents. ‘sandboxes’.

The businessman appears in third place with between 2% and 3% in voting intention, according to various surveys, below the presidential candidate of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN, left), Manuel Flores, and Bukele, of the ruling party Nuevas Ideas (NI).

This forecast is more unfavorable for Arena than what he achieved in the 2019 presidential elections, where he placed second.

Like Flores, Sánchez has minimal chances of winning the Presidency, but he assures that it is worth competing because “The love for my people, social conscience and my patriotic commitment puts me in the history of this country today.”

Sánchez is aware that his party is accused of corruption and that it has currently become an opposition with very little impact on the country’s political life.

“We do not give up in our effort to achieve the Presidency this February 4”said.

Arena was in the Executive for 20 years (1989-2009) and also dominated the Legislative Assembly, but the corruption cases of former presidents Francisco Flores (1999-2004) and Elías Antonio Saca (2004-2009) undermined his image.

Flores died in 2016 shortly before facing trial for the alleged diversion of a million-dollar donation from Taiwan, and Saca is serving a sentence for the embezzlement of more than $300 million, charges he confessed to in an abbreviated trial.

“Arena opened the doors for me to have this opportunity to serve my people and I take it with great pleasure, with great respect (…) to the leaders at the time who were corrupt and broke the law, the weight of the justice but all under due process”he pointed.

Sánchez, whose companies in the US, Mexico and El Salvador are dedicated to the services area, said that his candidacy comes from civil society and that he sought Arena as an electoral vehicle, because “The law requires participating with a political party”.

“In my case, I come from civil society, I am a candidate who has never participated in politics, I have no political past, my hands are clean, I have no stains,” he assured.

He pointed out that now the right-wing party is renewing itself “with new faces” and “that’s the important thing,” he said.

The candidate said that his plans are aimed at generating opportunities and jobs, attracting private investment, lowering the high prices of the basic food basket and providing support to micro and small businesses.

“Our government will take serious policies regarding the economy, legal security and monetary matters,” he pointed out.

He indicated that he would also seek to establish a permanent security policy that would not “take away civil rights from citizens” and considered that the emergency regime, a controversial measure implemented by the Bukele Government to combat gangs, has left “many innocent people in prisons.”

“I have the knowledge. “I know what my people need, I have been in the economic life of this country for several years and that puts me in an aspect of conscience, at a historical moment when our country is threatened, our democracy is threatened,” he added.

Regarding Bukele’s controversial candidacy, Sánchez said that it is illegal and that it is “a whimsical” because “Not only does it take precedence over the Constitution, but it also takes up all the resources of the State, of the Salvadorans to carry out its own political campaign.”